


Deal

by falsteloj



Category: Devil Went Down to Georgia (Song)
Genre: Angels, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Deal with a Devil, Death, Demons, Hell, Humor, Hypochondria, M/M, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsteloj/pseuds/falsteloj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Devil's been having a hell of day. First God, then Death, and now a fiddle player named Johnny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [McTabby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/McTabby/gifts).



> Yuletide 2012 treat for McTabby - I loved your letter, I hope you enjoy this even half as much! :)

Being the Devil is a cushy kind of job, that’s what all the feedback surveys said. The masses were conjuring up images of him spending his days sitting on a throne fashioned from the skulls of newborns, conducting an orchestra of tortured souls, sandwiched between bouts of goat sacrifice and sweet talking pretty young priests into submitting to temptation.

The masses hadn't the slightest idea.

For one thing the furnaces were playing up again, which meant their productivity figures were going to be way down on the previous quarter, and all the while God was busy boasting to anyone who’d listen about his customer satisfaction levels. That was typical God. They had been partners once, and the Devil knew God’s business practices were not as pure and holy as he liked to make them out to be. If he could get his hands on Saint Peter’s ledger he was sure he’d find all manner of foul play - not least a couple of thousand souls who ought to be his, by all reckoning.

Gabriel kept him up to date with it all - the man always had been an insufferable gossip - and, in Gabriel’s own words, he was better off out of it. God had ordered another round of Holy visions, and the heavenly choir had just been balloted for strike action in a dispute over unpaid overtime.

Not that he didn’t have his own troubles with the union, the Devil conceded as he checked his road map, then tried turning it upside down for good measure. Demonic possession had seemed just the ticket to up his brand recognition, but a proper possession was so longwinded and tiresome, and the Seventh Circle of Hell branch had taken to distributing propagandist pamphlets, complaining that spending months trapped in the body of a hormonal teenage girl wasn’t anywhere near as fun as it sounded.

So, here he was, when he had a million and one other things to be doing, losing a whole day at the altar of staff morale. Proof that he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. It wasn’t even that the targets were unachievable, it was that he had run into Death on his way into Qatar, and before he could think of a decent excuse he had been stuck listening to Death’s latest round of health problems.

Death, he could say with the confidence of having known the bloke for an eternity, was the biggest hypochondriac this side of the Universe. He was still on part-time hours after the latest breakdown, and the Devil thought it all rather jammy that he was still working his fingers to the bone, while Death sat around dumping his duties on whatever idiot happened to expire closest to midnight on December 31st.

Still, Death had found plenty to complain about. The constant roaming was eroding his ankle socket, apparently, and the weight of the scythe was giving him spinal problems. Before he had managed to escape, the Devil had also learnt that Mrs Death had recently broken her shinbone during a particularly lively Danse Macabre, and Death Junior had misplaced his left incus and had had to give up his yangqin lessons. Having suffered through more than one of Death Junior’s recitals, the Devil couldn’t find it in him to commiserate.

Perhaps it was the memory of the torment Death Junior had inflicted on his eardrums, perhaps it was the thought of Nergal and Abyzou stifling sniggers when he told them he hadn’t met his quota, but when he stumbled across a young man fiddling, he was more than ready to cut a deal with him. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge - he wasn’t as vain as some sandal wearing deities he could mention - but the Devil had won intergalactic fiddler of the year three centuries running. This, he checked his clipboard, _Johnny_ didn’t stand a chance.

With the kind of flourish that got the flesh skinners in the sixth court weak at the knees, the Devil jumped up onto a hickory stump and said,

“I guess you didn’t know it, but I’m a fiddle player too; and if you’d care to take a dare, then I’ll make a bet with you. Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the Devil his due. I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, ‘cause I think I’m better than you.”

Johnny, not being of the same sensibility as the giggly demonesses of the sixth court, looked distinctly unimpressed. Instead the boy met his gaze evenly, almost drawling as he told him,

“My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin, but I’ll take your bet. You’re gonna regret, ‘cause I’m the best there’s ever been.”

Now that rankled worse than hearing God described as the most influential being in the Universe. Even if the mention of sin did go straight to parts of him that weren’t necessary for the playing of the fiddle. Not wanting a repeat of the time he had lost at chess to Mary (frigid cow), and had had to give Theophilus his soul back, the Devil shook the thought free, coughed pointedly, and the djinn who was accompanying him to catalogue the day’s haul fell about himself to get the Purgatorio Chamber Orchestra on short notice.

The Devil took a moment to simply enjoy the build up, to position his trusty golden fiddle and feel its reassuring weight. To flex his fingers in anticipation, and give himself completely to the music. He played like it was something he was born to do, poured himself into the composition, and it was at once peaceful and exhilarating. He cocked an eyebrow at Johnny when it was over, waiting for him to cower in defeat, and declare the whole thing over.

Johnny was just full of surprises.

“Well, you’re pretty good, ol’ son,” Johnny said, lips quirked in an infuriating smirk that reminded the Devil too much of God when he was in one his holier-than-thou kind of moods. Johnny went on, “but sit down in that chair, right there, and let me show you how it’s done.”

The Devil sat, in spite of himself, and though he made a concerted effort not to, it was all too easy to lose himself in the frenzied passion of Johnny’s playing. This was what he was talking about when he said he was a fan of music, not the strains of the Demonic Youth Choir warbling their way through _Inno a Satan_.

It was obvious before Johnny had even lowered his bow what the result was. He knew that he’d been beat.

The knowledge was crushing; he had always been a spectacularly bad loser, as his sister would - and did, frequently - tell anyone who so much as had a chance of being interested. He didn’t care, of course, because it was the kind of thing expected of a being in his position. At least, that was the story he liked to tell himself.

In the here and now the Devil swallowed back his pride, bitter as bile, and laid the golden fiddle at Johnny’s feet. The djinn looked on wide-eyed, but the Devil kept his back straight and refused to back down. He might be many things, but he was always true to his word - as many a rash young woman had learnt to her disadvantage when he popped round to collect the soul of her firstborn.

Johnny grinned, pleased and knowing, and the Devil wondered if perhaps there wasn’t some demon blood in the kid’s ancestry.

“We don’t need no audience,” Johnny said, cocking his head towards the wet behind the ears djinn. The Devil didn’t need to glare twice for the demon to get the message.

Afterwards, Johnny fixed his hair and his clothing, and plucked the golden fiddle from the ground in victory. He smiled at the Devil, all fallen innocence, and laid the gauntlet down on his own terms,

“Devil just come on back if you ever want to try again, ‘cause I told you once, you son of a bitch, I’m the best there’s ever been.”

The Devil swung by Michigan on his way back to pick up a few souls, and acted nonchalant all through the unholy debriefing. If he mentioned casually that he was going to make it annual, this getting back to the basics of the job thing, then it wasn’t significant. Not at all. He simply marked it in blood on the calendar, and retreated to his private chamber for a couple of hours. It wasn't like he was preparing for something.

Practice never hurt anyone.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, feel free to chat / hit me with prompts over on Tumblr [@serenwib](http://serenwib.tumblr.com/) or Twitter [@falsteloj](https://twitter.com/falsteloj). :)


End file.
